It has recently come to my attention that I have a child with special needs.
Well, not quite. Our youngest is adopted, and all adoptees, in one sense or another, are special needs kids. We are raising a child who has experienced trauma, is dealing with grief, and has medical and emotional needs. We’ve been tending to those needs with the help of specialists, therapists, support groups, parent training, books, magazines, and websites.
Our youngest is seven years old. When she turned five, I asked for a conference with her pre-k teachers. She had been in preschool since she was two years old, yet she didn’t know the alphabet or recognize a single letter. The pre-k teachers were lovely and told me that the focus of pre-k wasn’t academics and that she would be learning it in kindergarten. Essentially, I was worrying needlessly.
I had the same conversation with her kindergarten teacher when she was six. She was lovely and told me that children learn at their own pace. If I just gave her space and time, she would get it. “It will just click one day.” Essentially, I was worrying needlessly.
Then I met her first grade teacher. Ours was the first parent-teacher conference she scheduled for the school year. I will never forget the first thing she said as she sat down, “I want you to know I just left a meeting regarding your daughter. I have requested building-level services and an evaluation. She cannot read. She doesn’t know the alphabet.”
I cried in my car for 30 minutes after that first meeting. Finally, someone didn’t think I was crazy. Finally, someone noticed that my daughter needed help. She had spent the last two years with teachers who assumed that she wasn’t trying hard enough, was lazy, and had a behavior problem. It’s actually a combination of ADHD, neurological issues, sensory issues, executive function issues, and dyslexia.
I have a child with special needs.
You may be reading this because you have similar concerns and suspicions about your own child. Or you already know. I’ll be honest; I have seriously considered not writing about this. I don’t want to write about my daughter’s struggles as if they are mine, and I don’t want to do anything to humiliate her.
But I do want to talk to the countless “new moms” like me; not new to being a mom, but new to being a special needs mom. New to the language, new to the structure, new to the “lifestyle,” new to the pitfalls. New to it all. I want to write frankly and honestly but gently and protectively. I come from a family that values privacy and doesn’t discuss problems.
